“In March 2006, Peter Quinn (former Massachusetts chief
information officer (CIO), made comments about clothing that set
off a bizarre firestorm of news and discussion. His comments were
noted in ZDNet Australia’s article, ‘Sandals and ponytail set cramp
Linux,’ CNET’s article ‘Sandal and ponytail set’ cramping Linux
adoption?, and many others. There were even articles in Linux
Weekly News (LWN) and Slashdot.“What did Quinn say? He simply stated that the appearance of
many free-libre/open source software (FLOSS) developers detracts
from FLOSS adoption. ‘Open source has an unprofessional appearance,
and the community needs to be more business savvy in order to start
to make inroads in areas traditionally dominated by [proprietary]
software vendors. [Having] a face on a project or agenda makes it
attractive for politicians [to consider open source].’“Guess what? He’s right…”